The Paris AtlasCharting the writers, books, and cities worth returning to.

A Moveable Feast

by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway's memoir of being young, poor, and absurdly talented in 1920s Paris — the most seductive book ever written about writing.

Published
1964
Pages
211
Setting
Paris
Shelf rating
4.7
Where to read:Your local bookstoreYour libraryRetailer links coming soon

The story, briefly

Spoiler-free

Written in his last years from notebooks rediscovered in a Ritz Hotel trunk, this is Hemingway's Paris: the flat above the sawmill, writing in cafés on an empty stomach, racetrack schemes, skiing winters, and indelible — often merciless — portraits of Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach's bookshop, and above all the Fitzgeralds. It is a memoir of apprenticeship, a settling of scores, and an elegy for a first marriage, all disguised as sketches.

Why we recommend it

  1. The best guidebook to the era ever written

    Every address is real, most still stand, and the walking route from the rue du Cardinal Lemoine to the Closerie des Lilas has been a literary pilgrimage for sixty years because of this book.

  2. Writing about writing that actually teaches

    'Write one true sentence' — the working habits, the rules, the discipline of stopping while it's going well. Half the writing advice in circulation is this book, diluted.

  3. The elegy under the gossip

    The knife-work on Stein and Fitzgerald gets the attention, but the book's real subject is the marriage and the poverty he was happiest in — and threw away. The last chapter is as sad as anything he wrote.

What this book explores

  • The craftWriting about writing — one true sentence at a time.
  • Hunger & povertyEmpty pockets, skipped meals, and the strange clarity they bring.
  • Friendship & rivalryMentors, protégés, and the knives that come out in memoirs.
  • The cityParis and New York as characters — feeders, seducers, devourers.

The real history

The flat at 74 rue du Cardinal Lemoine, Stein's salon at 27 rue de Fleurus, Shakespeare and Company's lending library — every address checks out, and most of them you can still stand in front of.

Read the full story in the journal

Bring it to book club

  • Hemingway wrote these portraits knowing most subjects were dead. Does the memoir's cruelty read differently because of it?
  • 'We were very poor and very happy' — how reliable is the poverty, and does it matter?
  • Which portrait — Stein, Pound, Fitzgerald — most changed how you read its subject?

A complete discussion guide is on our editorial calendar. Join the letter to hear when it ships.

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